Laureate Education plans to repay debt through sale of $800 million in senior notes

Laureate Education Inc., the Baltimore-based company that owns and operates universities around the world, is planning to refinance and pay down some of its roughly $3.8 billion in debt.

In a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Laureate said it would sell up to $800 million in senior notes, due in 2025, in a private offering.

Advertisement

The proceeds, combined with funds from its $490 million initial public offering on Feb. 1, to repay debt, including some high-interest bonds due in 2019, other term loans and seller notes that partially financed the 2014 acquisition of FMU Group, which ran college campuses in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the company said. It's also refinancing existing senior secured credit facilities.

Laureate has more than one million students enrolled at 70 institutions in 25 countries on campuses and in online programs. It took on substantial debt when Kohlberg Kravis Roberts took it private in 2007 in a $3.8 billion deal.

The company last week reported that its chairman and CEO, Douglas L. Becker, earned $6.4 million last year, more than double his 2015 compensation of $2.5 million. The increase was due largely to $4 million in option awards granted through plans in 2013 and last year, the company said.